Trinity College Finds PaySimple Solution Easy to Use for Staff and Students
DENVER, CO, May 27, 2008 – PaySimple, the leading provider of on-demand electronic payment solutions for small businesses, announced today that Trinity College, a non-profit, distance learning Bible College and Theological Seminary, has saved time and money accepting tuition payments using the PaySimple Solution, has doubled the amount of checks they process over the phone since implementation, and has sped up the time in which they receive funds.
Trinity College has offered degree programs in Bible, Counseling, Pastoral Ministry, Preaching, Apologetics and Theology since 1969. Trinity’s self-paced degree programs educate 4,000 students around the world, at bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate levels, preparing them for ministry and professional life. Students attend classes, interact with faculty and assist one another by mail, Internet and in person at their campus in Newburgh, Indiana. Trinity offers their students, most of whom are already full-time pastors, the opportunity to further their education while allowing them to continue ministering locally.
The business challenge Reese faced resulted from the normal human errors that came from their former check-by-phone system. Members of the Trinity College finance team would accept checks over the phone, taking down all of the various numbers needed to submit to the bank for payment. Although this was convenient for the students, there were invariably errors in the recording of the number. Then, when the incorrect routing number was submitted to the bank, Trinity would be charged $30 to $50 for each returned check. After several months of escalating bank fees, averaging $300-400 per month, Reese needed to make a change.
Following a review of several products in the marketplace, Reese and his team decided the PaySimple Solution was best able to address their needs both because of PaySimple’s ability to automatically convert paper checks into an electronic transfer via the Automated Clearing House (ACH) system, and because the Software as a Service (SaaS) Internet application is hosted by PaySimple, so there would be no additional IT resources needed to maintain the application. Trinity College now uses their computer as a “virtual cash register” to accept payments by mail and over the phone.
Trinity College immediately saw cost savings with the PaySimple Solution. Returned check fees went from $300-400/month to just $10-20/month, which were related to uncontrollable, nonsufficient fund (NSF) transactions. “PaySimple manages the process for us so that if we input the routing number we were given, and it’s incorrect, PaySimple stops the transaction prior to it getting to the bank – problem solved!” Reese said.
The finance team at Trinity College was delighted by how easy the PaySimple solution was to learn. “Getting started with PaySimple was amazingly easy; the system is simple and intuitive, and the customer training was wonderful. We were running transactions within 30 minutes of being approved,” Reese said. “It is so simple for me and my team to use on a daily basis, and none of us are technology people!”
Reese and his team were also pleased to see that there were other benefits from using the PaySimple Solution. The finance group at Trinity College found being able to accept and process checks so easily saved them significant time and gave them better visibility into cash flow and deposits. This in turn helped them close their books more accurately on a daily basis. A final benefit the team found was the speed at which they received their funds. A traditional check could take up to 14 days to clear, but when processing a check with PaySimple, they could cut that time down to three days.
“Our students find the PaySimple Solution extremely convenient. We have almost doubled the amount of checks we process over the phone since implementing this solution, and we look forward to getting the Web piece shortly, which would allow our students to pay their tuition online,” Reese said.